The Family (Or most of them)

October 13, 2006

The Stupidest Things I've Ever Done

I'VE DONE SOME PRETTY STUPID THINGS IN MY LIFE AS I TRANSFORMED FROM THIS...

TO THIS...(no, just kidding, this is a guy named Al from work)

To, more or less, for better or worse, this wind-worn and ravaged example of a somewhat nomadic northern North American male, just one of the masses.

(caricature credit: Homo Escapeons)

Fifty years on a planet can bring a lot of experiences...good and bad, happy and sad, brilliant and stupid.

And while this is by no means an exclusive list, here are my top 10 or more stupidest things I've ever done, in no particular order.

I was going to make this a meme, but opted not to.

However, I invite all visitors to either comment with their own list -- we won't laugh, although I expect some of you might laugh at mine -- or post your list on your own blogs.

A meme is not a mime. If you think about the dumbest things you've ever done and then don't let the rest of us in on them -- as in mime instead of meme -- well, that's kinda dumb too.

And not nearly as much fun.

Anyway, here we go...some of the stupidest thing I've ever done:

1. Sneaking up behind the hugely unpopular teacher/tyrant Mrs. Davies in Grade 7 and pulling her skirt down. Ooh, did I get in trouble for that. A week's suspension, as I recall.

2. As a kid of maybe 7, trying to walk tightrope style along the fence in my back yard and slipping. Oops. Right between the legs. Ouch.

3. At about age 9, getting angry at my mom and going to push open the back door. Only problem was, the top part of the door was made of glass. Both arms go through the windows.

As I pull my arms back in shock, rrrrriiiippppp! Right wrist cut open almost down to the bone, hitting the artery. Drive to hospital in panic and in blood. Nine stitches.

4. Now maybe 12 or 13, me and my brother sneaking some cigarettes from my mom, going outside with him and lighting up...right outside the dining room window! Doh!

Out she came. Forced us both to inhale and almost die.

5. With an equally stupid buddy somewhere around age 15, drinking a whole bottle of the cheapest wine we could find someone to buy for us and downing it in the crying room of the church where I was (yes, it's true) an altar boy.

Then moseying on down the street to the high school dance, pulling up a chair, leaning back on it as I always did and promptly falling backwards, getting sick and being driven home by the -- eek -- principal.

Penalty: three-day suspension.

6. Being asked out by the most popular girl in Grade 11 -- and saying no because I had to train for football. Duh.

7. Ill-advisedly attempting a 2 1/2 somersault off a 3-metre diving board and doing what amounts to a belly flop, only the excruciating pain was a bit lower. Geez, I've put them through a lot of unnecessary physical anguish.

8. Passing out in the middle of a highway in northern Manitoba while foolishly (and, yes, drunkenly) deciding to walk the seven miles back to the fish plant I worked at from Leaf Rapids.

I woke up at dawn sprawled out on the middle of the highway, somehow NOT run over by a car in the pitch-black darkness or eaten by bears or wolves. (A pic of the fish plant follows)

9. On a 4 1/2-month overland bus trip from England to India and back, I was convinced to consume both copious amounts of very potent hashish and some Indian beer in Hyderabad.

Hey...I was young and foolish and this was the late 70s!

I passed out in some field...and actually woke up, alive.

10. On that same trip, in Kabul, Afghanistan, I made the poor choice of saying the word fuck as a merchant tried to gouge me by charging an unbelievable amount for a sheep-wool sweater I was trying to buy.

He promptly pulled a knife on me and backed me into a corner. He knew what the word meant because the "American hippies living on Chicken Street" used it all the time, he said. Oops. My mistake. I apologized.

11. Homo Escapeons and I went out to Wallace Lake for a weekend, an event that of course called for loud music, heavy alcohol consumption and, oh yeah, a 2 a.m. canoe ride out on the lake.

Umm, someone had removed the drain plug from the bottom of the canoe. We paddled out about 300 feet and while HE didn't notice, I remarked, "there's water in the canoe."

We sunk about five minutes later, somewhere out in the middle of the lake. The pic on the right is one of us in the cottage going to dry off following that misadventure.

Of course there are many other goofy things I could talk about.

Like ripping my knee out while playing frisbee football in Turkey, or screwing up a disc in my back while trying to do a bit of downhill skiing on cross-country skis (don't try that), or using a power drill and having the bit sink into my thigh when I was into my home handyman expert phase, or having a full can of paint fall on my head.

But that would make this post far too long. Actually, it already IS far too long and I haven't even gotten into my rather sordid love life except for Sylvie in Grade 11.

32 comments:

I was trying to think of stupid things I've done and none come to mind. Maybe I'm perfect. ;)

Actually, one comes to mind. I was about 4 or 5 years old at the time. My older brother (by 2 years) and a distant cousin had turned on one of the burners on the electric stove. They let it heat up and then turned it off. I saw them do this and I saw the burner go from bright hot red back to the usual cool black. I'm not sure how it happened, but they told me to put my hand on the burner, so I did. It turns out that it wasn't cool at all. The palm of my hand bubbled. I screamed and cried. My brother put his hand over my mouth to shut me up and made me promise to not tell my parents. I agreed. So I guess those are actually two stupid things in one.

By the way, I see a little bit of a resemblance to David Letterman in that picture of you by the water. That's a compliment - Mr Letterman is a hottie. And thanks for the tushy shot - very cute.

You were a real piece of work when you were young.How did you ever manage to stay out of a Turkish prison like Billy Hayes in Midnight Express?

If I was Dr Phil I would mention that most of your predicaments involved binge drinking...

how the f**k did you manage to escape being eaten by a bear in northern manitoba passed out in the middle of nowhere and YOU WORKED IN A FISH PLANT! gee I bet you didn't smell and look like some big juicy Pickerel..

You need to address that trip to Wallace..that looks soooo gay!(not that there is anything wrong with that)

Another brilliant one, WW. Love the shot of the two party boys in the canoe -- and is that your arse I spy? And how come so many of these are intimitaely connected with alcohol? (Now THAT'S a stupid question.)

One of my stupidest alcohol-induced moments was on a wreck of a tin bucket ferry on an extremely stormy night in the Aegean when I was 19 and backbacking around Europe. Simon (the Australian), David (the American with the "Sit On My Face" t-shirt) and I were in some kind of stupid drinking competetion while the entire rest of the boat was either puking their guts up or trying not to crash into one of a thousand unnamed islands. And there's me, bottle of wine in one hand, other hand clutching a post, while sitting on the deck railing as the boat pitched and heaved. I'm lucky to be here today.

And HE's reference to Midnight Express -- man, that was one movie that had an effect on me -- but not enough, obviously.

As much as I love Americans, and as much as we may be swallowed up by them at some point in the future and become Americans, I am NOT an American.

We're that huge expanse of land north of the U.S. of A., where the population density is about 1 per 1 million square kilometres.

Canadians invented the game of basketball. We invented the telephone. We invented the Blackberry and, some would argue, we invented the United Nations. We invented cold weather. While we didn't invent ice hockey or curling, we are, generally speaking, the world's best at those events.

I'm just sayin'.

So you didn't say what happened when you rode down that one-way street on your bike.

And you won't mind if I say I'm glad I wasn't around to watch you walk through your apartment nude for an entire day.

I'm all for you, me and HE getting together for a boat trip.

As long as you wouldn't mind capsizing in a canoe and swimming to shore.

My hand healed beautifully and without any scars. And no, I never got back at my brother. I was the nice one, the good girl; but you probably already guessed as much. :)

Yes, Letterman is a hottie. And, in case you haven't looked in the mirror lately or have enough women around you to tell you so, you're a hottie as well. Deal with it. ;)

I giggled at your second reply to HE's comments. I read those questions like I was singing that Talking Heads song:

And you may ask yourselfWhat is that beautiful house? And you may ask yourselfWhere does that highway go? And you may ask yourselfAm I right? ...am I wrong? And you may tell yourselfMy god!...what have I done?

Anna did bring one stupid human trick to mind, athough it wasn't what I'd call death-defying.

It was a grapefruit juice-and-grain fueled evening where me, my dorm roomie and his girlfriend had gotten back from seeing the Talking Heads concert flick "Stop Making Sense."

Said roomie was a big-boned fellow, so I co-opted his suit jacket, stood out in the dorm lounge, jerked around like an epileptic and exclaimed "SAME AS IT EVER WAS, SAME AS IT EVER WAS, SAME AS IT EVER WAS . . .."

The dumbest thing that I ever did...hmmm so many to choose from..OK back in high school after a stint at a local pub one of our mates was just coming in as we were leaving and warned us that some drunk Biker Chick was screaming obscenities at all of our dazzling little suburbanite friends...STAY CLEAR...and that is the last thing that I remember..

however from the first hand accounts of my friends who were with me the whole thing unfolded like this..I exit buildingBiker Chick calls me a pussyI walk up to her and tell her to F*CK OFF300 lb Biker Boyfriend steps out from behind Biker ChickI stand there and let him adjust my chin..POW..my friends drag my unconcious body to the car..I regain conciousness and discover that we are on our way back to the pub with baseball bats..arrive in parking lot to discover that there are now about 20 Bikershigh speed pursuit begins..we evade certain death in our suburban hood..Next weekend we go back to pub and all is apparently forgotten..Biker says HEY! and apparently all is forgotten...apparently I now had some street cred for not being a wuss..jaw still 'clicks' to this day.

First the post, then the pictures and now the agonising tenderness between you two - it IS Brokeback Mountain 2 - for gawd's sake - just kiss and get it over with! ;)

Stupidest thing I ever did? Roller-blading in Kensington Gardens ( no, that's not it). My sister's then-boyfriend had been encouraging me to blade down slight ramps and bumps rather than sticking to the flat, boring paths. I'd got quite brave after a few hours, thought I was a natural and that I didn't need to be as whoosy as my sister and take my boots off to get to the bottom of the steep, wide, gravelly road that led down to the High Street where we were to be picked up.

It was like a scene from a Carry On movie with me playing the Barbara Windsor role( I could also have said Last Of The Summer Wine but not sure if you'd have got that reference - I think you'd appreciate it), arms making like windmills, heads turning all over the park to see what was making all the noise. Somehow I managed to throw myself onto the grass at the bottom rather than careering across 4 lanes of busy traffic. I still have the scars.

hmmm...stupid things...my sister and I talked Mum into letting us go swimming in a flood. We had a thing of going on (tyre) tubes down the river. There was a particularly good set of rapids in one spot - good in a flood I mean.So I get in, go over the rapids and whoosh - what the hell happened! Some weird water forces came into play and I was sucked tube and all under the water and held under -had to swim with all my might to try and get to the surface again.If Ii'd hit my head, that would have been it. Have always wondered - WHAT kind of pressure would been required for a tube to be held under the water???? -UNBELIEVABLE.But it did cure my sister and I of begging to go for a swim in a flood ;).

Attending a high school band festival in which my son the tuba player was competing. I watched one of the bands doing 70's music (and rather poorly) and later remarked to someone standing nearby that I'd never heard a band suck the life out of "25 or 6 to 4." That person was their band director.

The world of Farcebook

I have kids on Farcebook. And friends. And a fiance. And all are very intelligent human beings.

I am on Farcebook myself. But it is the TV of life now. It is the simple, devoid of ideas, unintelligent way of humans communicating. I am not saying people who don't Farcebook are any more intelligent, necessarily.

They are people who , I believe, are like newspaper readers are to television viewers --people of more depth -- and I mean that with no disrespect.

And they are people who need and want more depth, not less, in their lives.